Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Come Sunday morning, the matchstick man bought a newspaper, a chocolate heart (wrapped in red foil), and walked to his favorite bench in The Park of Lovers

There, amidst soothing birdsong, and romantic music drifting from the bandstand, he would read about the crazy world and its people who made headlines, all the while, neatly nibbling on his chocolate heart.

Then, one Sunday morning, approaching his bench, he saw that it was occupied by a Fat Lady – literally, a lady made of fat! She sat looking straight ahead, half melted in the autumn sun.

The matchstick man was most upset to have his routine thwarted by this glistening figure.

He coughed, ‘Urk! – and then returned home.

The following Sunday was much of a repeat. Except, in place of the Fat Lady, sat a Barbie Doll, staring out at the duck pond. It was a most off-putting sight. And so the matchstick man returned home.

‘Urk! Urk!

Autumn leaves fell and matchstick man stayed away from the park. Then, came the darkness and cold of winter.

‘Surely, no one will want to sit in a cold, damp park today,’ thought the matchstick man, as he returned there one wintry morning. However, when he arrived at his old spot – there, on his bench, sat a young woman, reading. Stiffly upright, she could easily have been made of wood, herself. But she smiled and shifted away from the centre when she saw that someone else wanted to sit down.

‘If I do not accept her polite gesture,’ he thought, ‘that would be most impolite of me.’

With that, he sat down and opened his newspaper. For a while, the two were silent. Once or twice they looked up when a noisy crow flew overhead. Then, slowly . . . but powerfully, the urge to unwrap his chocolate heart overcame his shyness. The red foil crinkled, which drew a sweet smile from the young woman.

‘If I do not share of my chocolate heart,’ he thought, ‘that would be most discourteous of me.’

So he asked her if she might like to share his precious heart. Indeed, she would . . . very much.

That winter, the matchstick man and Lily (for that was her name) met every Sunday morning to read and share an inexpensive chocolate heart, wrapped in red foil.

Then came the first day of Spring . . . and a mystery that was to remain with him forever.

Arriving a little late, the matchstick man was surprised to find the bench empty – except for a copy of love poems lying where Lily had always sat, waiting for him.

Confused, he sat down . . . opened the book and read the note that fell out:

Monday, February 21, 2011

There's something about having a party at a house on a Saturday night, with an almost full Sugar Moon... something pretty wonderful. The Time Flies must be one of my favourite bands. They evoke that feeling you get just before lift-off. They ended their set with a rocking dirty version of "Blue Moon". A young girl said to me, breathlessly: I always thought he was cool, but John Trafford is GOD!

DJ Appletart dusted off the decks and played for the first time in two years. I'd forgotten how nice it is to fill a dance floor. Halfway in, the tall drink of water joined on percussion and MC Mr Nimbus had the crowd shouting. Thanks to the Cutie with the eyeliner for keeping me cool and watered for two hours and to Be, for twiddling the controls.

2h30 Found me... still at the party. Knowing that I had to get up at something to do with a four again.

Is this what people mean when they talk about a midlife crisis? If so, I like this part.

I felt like a teenager with no curfew.

Like an egg in a whisk.

Dawn in the city. We shot an iced tea commercial in a play play New York.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A big thank you to the man with the generous heart for insisting, gently, but over and over again: Lil, you should write a blog. So, one afternoon, a year ago, I sat down and started a blog about sourcing props for the film industry, mostly from the Milnerton boot sale. Over time, it has turned into something else. I couldn't explain to you exactly what, but it's still about finding stuff and it's changed my life.

It warms my heart when you write to me and phone me and come up to talk to me at the supermarket.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

My parents, on their honeymoon in Durban, in the sixties.
My Father was a surgeon, my Mother his theatre sister. She'd pass him instruments and think to herself: "He has such beautiful hands!" Behind his back they called him Dr. Dreamboat.
They had supper by candlelight every night. They danced in the kitchen. Us kids would roll our eyes and the daschund went beserk.

My Grandmother and Grandfather on the beach in Jeffreys Bay. (In matching swim suits!)
I'm not sure how they met, but I have this dance card from 1924.

Eight dances, including first and last, to P.,
my Grandfather.
So romantic.

Monday, February 14, 2011

As much as I sometimes wish for the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind - to wipe away a five year big dipper ride... along with the bad there were seeds of something beautiful. Sometimes that's what keeps one championing the struggle. I still believe in love. I saw it in it's purest form between my mother and my father.

So, dear readers, happy Valentine's day and here's to brilliant sparkly love and dancing to songs on the radio with someone who loves every atom of you.

From the online LIFE picture archives.

Days of splendid indolence.

The place that we went to was a wild place, far away. On the first night there, we danced barefoot on the lawn in the balmy air and then we lay down on the soft green grass, under the milky way. He told me about the stars and how I made him feel when we were together. We kissed slowly and deeply in the glittering darkness. (Imagine desire, like steam, spiraling on the skin.) On a solitary walk early one morning, two brown buck rushed across my path. I felt my heart beating in my mouth as they galloped away through the low bushes, glistening, dust clouds slowly settling. Blue headed salamanders sunbathed on the high rocks and birds swooped in mid-flight to gulp drops of water falling over the edge of the ravine. I could see their tiny throats undulating from below. I floated on my back in the cool dark water, watching little sun flecks, small round rainbows drifting in the air above me. There was a low rushing sound in my ears and I felt utter, unalloyed calm.

Whenever I wandered away on my own, he found me and he touched me in some warm way, bringing me back to the undiluted moment. I would miss this in the solitary days that were to follow. At dawn one morning we found ourselves in the middle of a field of brushwood, near slowly running water. It was impossible to keep my eyes open - I'd open them briefly and see him flaring above me, surrounded by a disc of pulsing, blinding light, fiery particles hovering in the sky around us. There was a moonstone yellow glow on the horizon and the air was filled with the fragrance of the small leaved bushes that we were crushing with our movement, and the coppery smell of the water.

The time that we spent away had a strong dreamlike feel to it, of which there were few spells of pure lucidity. On the night before we left, I looked around the room and I felt the air shift. Seed pods rattled against the roof. We stayed awake that night, the murmuring of our voices continuing for hours. He told me the next day that it had felt like love in chapters. He said that one of the best things about going away with me had been holding my hand in the car on the way back.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

We worked on a shoot in Stellenbosch last week. It was incredibly hot. "So warm, die kraaie gaap" and "snikhete". Two wonderful expressions in Afrikaans. I fed them into Google Translate and it came up with the title above. I see many hours of amusement ahead...

On the first day we watched as the mountains became darker and darker blue. Later there was a thunderstorm. Stellenbosch has changed a lot since I was a student there. They have rush hours now! But what really blew me away was how incredibly friendly
and helpful people were.

Our location was just out of town - Mulderbosch wine estate. They make one of my favourite chardonnays.

Spent a few hours doing beauty shots of lettuce. Zzzzzzz. All these lights and reflectors for one head of lettuce. I helped the food stylist reset her salad bowl for take after take. This meant picking out bits of carrots and nuts with a tweezer. (Surely there's a name for this job - like the Fluffer on a porn set?)

In the afternoon we moved on to the cellar set. Rubbed shoulders with some great legends in the world of rugby and wine. The most fun part of the day: recording wild sound upstairs - corks being popped, wine being poured, a rubber stamp being stamped.

It was a pleasant change to work with a down-to-earth Afrikaans director. He knew exactly what he wanted, no bullshit, no tantrums. Impressed.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

My previous post resulted in numerous phone calls and a bag full of mail. Thank you!

An astute friend wrote:

Love might be a hat. If we had no control over falling in love, then many of us would live lives full of guilt and remorse and regret. I've held back from falling in love, sensing that it could be more dangerous and destructive than pleasurable. I think there is a point where, consciously or unconsciously, a decision is made to fall, or to stand on the brink, or to step back entirely. To admire the hat, to lift it up and look at it from all angles, or to put it on.

I hope she doesn't mind me quoting her. This is a person of great integrity - a rare quality these days.

I'm a careful person. I've not been in love many times,

but I fall in love like...

falling off a cliff.

My friend's words have made a large impression and I'm taking a step back to reflect.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

A fire in the garden. Lamb kebabs. Fresh mint sauce. Eggplant and pomegranates. A big dish of hummus with everyone dipping in. Night swimming. Then dancing at Assembly till two.

It bothers me that we pay only R40.00 to see music of this quality. This is entertainment! The Wild Eyes. How I love them. Nikhil's glam rock persona enthralls. Afterward, we went backstage to give Len a hug. The Shrek of a bouncer picked me up by my forearms and deposited me at a safe distance. Very rock 'n' roll.

Spoek Mathambo and Mshini Wam. A kwaito and techno mix up. Who would have thought? It's incredible to see Spoek Mathambo moving on with something so different from Sweat-X.

Oxygen is the most abundant element in the earth's crust and in the body. The body's 43 kilograms of oxygen is found mostly as a component of water, which makes up approximately 70% of total body weight.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Last November I was asked to put together a special hamper for a photographer. Karl Lilje was that man. Since then, we've become cyber-friends and I met him in person last night at his exhibition. (This seems to be a recurring theme, set in motion on New Year's day...)

It was a novelty indeed to have someone whose work I admire a great deal tell me that he's a fan of my writing. It made me blush and gaze at my shoes. Thanks Karl.

The Owl and the Pussycat

I picked you a rose...

These were my favourite images. I love the ocean floor and I love her slick sou'wester evening dress. Karl later likened his deconstructed flower images to the way he photographs his subjects. Finding hidden layers. It's obvious that there is a great rapport between artist and model.

The night was made all the more magical by a tropical storm. I drove home through the heat and big plopping drops of rain, with bright flashes of lightning over the bay.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Much like a hundred-year-old flirty text message, this love letter is written in a puzzling language of icons called a rebus. It was discovered in the Swansea University Archives, among the minutes of the temperance society (they who abstain from the drinking of alcohol) and dates back to 1890. Transcript follows:

My Dearest Fanny,

I am writing these few lines to tell you that I cannot live any longer without you. I worship you always. I think you are a beauty and the nicest girl I ever saw and I adore you. Oh exquisite Fanny, do not despise me for loving you so well. I shall be broken-hearted if you desert me. Can you meet me on Monday night, when I will take you to the Star Music Hall. I hate that Bill Robinson, who is hanging after you and I intend to horsewhip him when I see him. I shall be delighted to hear from you at once. Do not let my suit be fruitless. Reply by next post to

Then one evening there were no leftovers. I went to the grocery store. The sales clerk said artichokes are out of season. This is not San Diego. Still I dreamt of her, dipped in lemony butter, scraped carefully with teeth and sucked, the pale cream flesh, the tender flower, her skirt held like a cup, each sip bringing me closer to the moon, the vegetable pearl of her insides where the heart fans out fibrous hairs and waits a last mouthful of her green world.

Nin Andrews(1958-)

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Virginia Wolf

(1882-1941)

Never love anybody who treats you like you're ordinary.

Oscar Wilde

(1854-1900)

You could tend a garden at night, only at night, pouring dark water onto leaves, and into the earth, like pouring midnight onto midnight. You could hold your soil-stained hands up to the moon. The stars would gleam on the bottom of the shovel. It would smell the same as a daytime garden - it would smell green, violet, red, white. But come back, in daylight. Come back, to see the colours without closing your eyes.- Sean Michaels. Accompaniment to the song "Immune" by LOW. Said the Gramophone

"The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.

Katherine Mansfield

(1888-1923)

"It's important to begin a search on a full stomach."Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

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It's an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence,like a love affair you can nevertalk about.For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you've been and what's happened. In the end, you're just happy you were there - with your eyes wide open - and lived to see it.Anthony Bourdain (1956-), from The Nasty Bits.

"You say the sentence or you write the sentence again and again until the tuning fork is still." - Martin Amis (1949-)

"People like me write because otherwise we are pretty inarticulate. Our articulation is our writing." – William Trevor (1928-)

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to." Jim Jarmusch (1953- )

"A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals." John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you smelled and saw nothing to eat all the way from the Place de l'Observatoire to the rue de Vaugirard. There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought that Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) - from A Moveable Feast.

"Men are climbing to the Moon, but they don't seem interested in the beating human heart."Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), in a letter to a friend, one year before her death.

"The barbaric gleams right under the surface of all human skin."Jorie Graham (1950-)

S u b s c r i b e

"The real director of our life is Accident - a director full of cruelty, compassion and bewitching charm."Pascal Mercier (1944-)

"Talking of pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my mouth a nectarine - how good, how fine. It went down all pulpy, slushy, oozy, all it's delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large, beatified strawberry ."John Keats (1795-1821)

"Words are only painted fire, a book is the fire itself."Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"I'm what you might describe as the classic underachiever. I tread that fine line between boffin-dom and the grand amateur."Andrew Weatherall (1963-)

"The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds, his heart of hearts that the picturesdostop."Saul Bellow (1915-2005) from Ravelstein